


Come On, Fall In (Love)

by getyouwhateverthepayne



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blow Jobs, First Time Blow Jobs, M/M, Soulmates, a weird mix of 50s through 90s time period, dont try to make sense of it, i guess, idk what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 08:02:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1975158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getyouwhateverthepayne/pseuds/getyouwhateverthepayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say the first song you hear is the song that will be playing when you meet your soul mate -- well, sometimes. There are a lot of complications. Half the time it doesn't work. Parents try to rig it. </p><p>Zayn doesn't even believe it's true.</p><p>Harry does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come On, Fall In (Love)

**Author's Note:**

> i had this idea while i was watching "her" (which is amazing, btw) and i scribbled it all down on about seven napkins and my mom asked me what i was doing and honestly, i still have no idea
> 
> thank you to the awful song hot diggity for playing on repeat while i wrote the first draft and to sam smith's entire album for sticking with me til the end
> 
> my main tumblr is [donechapel](http://www.donechapel.tumblr.com) and my writing one is [getyouwhateverthepayne](http://www.getyouwhateverthepayne.tumblr.com)
> 
> also just so you dont confused, this is an alternate universe and a messy one so it's kind of 50s-esque but everyone also has cassettes and those cassettes also have headphones. so. it doesn't make sense. sorry.
> 
> (i'm not, though) (it was rly fun to write)
> 
> ps here is my [8tracks](http://8tracks.com/xjxbx/come-on-fall-in-love) playlist of songs i listened to while writing this (sam smith not included) with a bunch of my friends' like, couple songs. :-) so it's kind of like a playlist of """"real"""" soulmate songs. ok.

It’s late.

It's late, and when it’s late and people are spending it forcing out certain thoughts, they are usually alone. They could have friends, family, people who care about them, but when they sit down by themselves in the middle of the night and light a cigarette and suck on it like they’re trying to get more than smoke from its burning paper, they are the loneliest kind.

Because here, if your hands shake when they’re not holding something or your eyes close when you’re in the dark, it’s one of the signs. It means you’re missing your one. Some people don’t believe it, and it might not be true, in the long run, but lonely people sometimes need time to realize that the pulling in their chest is what it is.

+

Fuck him.

Fuck him and his fucking need for khaki pants in the workplace, and fuck him for telling him to go home early.

Fuck him.

Zayn smolders for a bit, trying not to smash his hands against the wall, before kicking the dumpster beside him with all his force.

Fuck him.

Breathe. Relax your shoulders. Breathe.

Zayn closes his eyes and slides down the brick wall and fumes, impatiently waiting for his anger to subside. Breathe. He lights a cigarette and breathes. In. Out and in. Out and in. For a few minutes, that’s all he does.

And when he flicks the cigarette butt from between his fingers it lands with a sizzle on the wet pavement, rolling into a puddle and rippling the fluorescent rainbow lights reflected in the water. 

With hooded eyes he fits on his heavy headphones and skips a track, breathing, calming down, settling himself into his place. His dirty black sneakers scuff on the cement. The smell of whatever the hell is in the dumpster to his right is near overwhelming tonight, overpowering the constant smell of sea and salt that’s everywhere in town, something sour and sweet and a little bit nauseating to anyone who hasn’t built up a tolerance yet. 

Zayn, of course, has built up a tolerance. He’s been here enough. The movie theatre is just letting out at the entrance of his alley, people still in that drunken high from being in the cinema, swaying and walking straight past him without a second glance, and he always likes to watch them try to regain their bearings while he sits there, just out of sight. He’s not here to them. He doesn’t exist. He’s a darker shadow in the already dark shadow of back alleys and gutters. 

He’s not hiding, is the thing. It’s just his place. 

The stars are always high in the sky when he sits here, too, high enough for Zayn to catch their glint in the cut of night between the rooftops of the theatre and Gary’s Pharmacy. He doesn’t look up because he never really does. Somewhere a few blocks away there’s a carnival and Zayn can always feel that too, the vibrations of summer and sound, the cotton candy and couples and laughter and even more unfortunately Perry Como’s Hot Diggity trembling the streets. When it’s winter there’s always more calm, more quiet, but right now it’s peak season. Zayn closes his eyes.

He comes here sometimes when his shift’s over, like right now, when his heels are sore from standing and when he’s tired of people and just needs to go somewhere and not think. He found it a few years ago, the alley, and he could be doing something more interesting with his time — getting drunk or trying to have sex or getting high or even just going home — but instead he’s just here. Sober, bored, and not planning on doing anything about that anytime soon.

Because Zayn doesn’t want to go home. 

Even though he knows his mother is pacing the kitchen floor right about now, her long nightdress fluttering, the leftover soup or stew or roast steaming unattended on their rickety stove because his shift was over a half hour ago, goodness.

Zayn doesn’t want to go home because that’s not really home. That’s a bit overdramatic. But he’s eighteen, so it’s fine. 

He listens to a few more tracks, allowing dirt and grime to soil the back of his loose shirt and the bottom of his jeans, and he tries to keep his eyes closed, to breathe, to let the sound envelop him the way they say it’s supposed to. He tries to not think.

Because his mother is saying it might happen soon. And he doesn’t fucking believe it, because it’s all bullshit anyway, but still. 

He knows it’s a lie constructed by an industry based off of cheap cards that play tinny versions of only slightly less tinny songs that still sell thousands every season, but still. 

But still.

See, if there were an alternate universe where this didn’t happen, where he could just live without ever having that thought in the back of his mind, that what if every time he turns a corner, that but still, he’d run after it. Fuck, he’d sprint. He’d leave everything behind, no questions asked. Just to get rid of that nagging little what if.

But the sound doesn’t envelop him, just rings in his ears like always and leaves too much room for unwanted thoughts, so he’s restless. It’s not working. It never really has for him. The beat just shakes him, runs away, and he can never quite catch it.

It feels like he’s waiting for something instead, which is fucking annoying, because this is the only place where he can be at peace, goddamn it. 

He turns up the volume.

An alley rat sniffs at some of the stray pieces of trash beside him, but by now he’s learned not to look at anything too closely, so he ignores it. He doesn’t mind them, really. His mother’s the one that puts up a fuss, angry about the dirt under his nails and the smoke on his breath every other night, but the rats never show their faces, so it’s almost like he’s alone here. And if he turns his music up loud enough, he can’t even really hear them. 

But he kind of likes the sound. His old comic books, still in good condition but never opened anymore, are piled up in a teetering mess around him, and behind them is usually where they stay. 

Zayn tries to stop the jittering in his hands. Focuses on lighting the new stick between his teeth because he’s not allowed to smoke in the house, so he can only do it here. The jittering, of course, only gets worse when it takes a few tries to light up, so now he’s on the verge of breaking into a sweat.

He’s fine. He’s not going through withdrawal or anything, and he’s not on any seriously illegal drugs, but summer weather can just make even the smallest efforts turn into drips of sweat that run down your temples and into your eyes. He tries to ignore it, just sucks hard on his cigarette and closes his eyes again, but it’s hard to block out.

A few minutes go by. He rests his head.

As he sits here, thinking about not thinking, thinking about how to make his mind blank — utterly, wondrously blank — the perspiration slowly beads across his forehead. He relaxes his shoulders and tries to push out all the tenseness in one big swoop, the way his friend Danny says, but it just adds to his frustration when it does nothing. 

Maybe it’s just his own mind working on overdrive. Heating up and about to explode. Maybe that’s why he’s sweating.

And that’s what he’s thinking when he hears it, over the pounding bass of his music: a quiet shuffle a few yards away. 

Still sitting, he whips off his headphones and shoots forward to peer around the corner of the dumpster and, with a shaking hand, pulls out his cigarette from between his teeth and puts it out between his fingers. And the heat nearly singes him, but he’s not paying attention.

Because a dark silhouette’s appeared at the entrance of the alley, his alley, and of all the times he’s sat here since he was fourteen, no one’s ever stepped into it except for him. Not when he was here. They always walk by, maybe pause once, then keep going. They never stop. Even Danny only got to come here twice.

Instinctively, Zayn clenches his hand tightly around his house keys and his pack of cigarettes, his other reaching silently for his skateboard. The streetlights outline the figure in an ethereal glow, and he can only just make out the cut of a jaw, a sliver of light running down it and tapering near the bottom. The figure is still, shoulders wide and looming, arms at his sides, intimidating but not immediately a threat. 

Then he takes a step forward.

Thankfully Zayn’s still half-hidden behind the dumpster, in the shadow cast by the streetlights, because the face he makes is almost comical. And while he won’t admit he’s scared — because he’s NOT — he does pull in his knees a bit and rest the back of his head quietly against the grimy brick wall behind him, staring straight ahead at the opposite wall with wide open eyes. He is not here. He does not exist. He is just a shape in the dark. He’s fine.

And then his fucking cassette jumps and stutters, halting, and then suddenly switches to another song that just blasts, loudly, deafeningly, definitely past the scope of his headphones and definitely loud enough for the figure just a few yards away to hear it.

Zayn winces and scrambles to mute it, stopping the tape altogether for good measure, taking care to make no more noise, no scuffle of the feet, no shifting of his shirt fabric. He’s not here. He does not exist. He is nothing, just a noise in an empty alley. 

Fuck.

But when he finally gathers up enough courage to peek around the metal dumpster again, a near minute later, to see how likely it is he’s going to die tonight, the figure is gone. All he sees is the street across from him, the empty sidewalk, the closing storefronts. The only sound he hears is the distant beating of the sea, the loud carnival music, the occasional swish of a passing car. He’s fine.

Relief — huge, overwhelming relief — swells in his ears and closes his eyes and tires him out like he’s just run a mile.

(Zayn knows he’s got the start of a reputation around town, just enough for people to know he chooses to fly alone, and you don’t really talk to him when he’s packing your groceries, but he’s not so sure how well that would have done him this late at night.)

With a shake of the head, he gets up and drops his skateboard on the ground, rolling it back and forth to check the bad wheel before winding up and riding.

He tries to not think. If he closes his eyes while he flies down the street, he feels a little free.

*

Innocence is always born with cracks, and sometimes you slip through them too early.

Because when Zayn was seven years old, his mother sat him down at their small kitchen table with a gentle hand on his shoulder and a heaping plate of eggs and bacon and toast and strawberries and then sat down across from him. 

Zayn, being seven, didn’t think twice, just dug in with bright eyes and a hurried ‘thank you, Ma, I love you, Ma’ mumbled around mouthfuls of scrambled eggs with just the right amount of cheddar cheese and pepper, just the way he liked them, and he didn’t even notice when she started to smile a little sideways, her nightgown from last Christmas wrapped tightly around her torso, her arms wrapping around her waist, like she was trying to keep something in.

He noticed enough to see she looked a bit nervous, but his mind was consumed with thoughts of ‘what in the world did I do to deserve such a great breakfast on Saturday morning, I wonder if Power Rangers are on this early,’ that he just thought she was a bit afraid he wouldn’t like the food. Hence the voluminous wave of ‘this is so good, Ma, thank you,’ spilling from his mouth before his mother put her hand on his smaller one, the one about to reach for his orange juice.

“Zayn,” she said then, stilling him a little, just enough for him to finish chewing and swallow bigly and know to not reach for another bite. Her big eyes were lovely and warm and soft, brown like Zayn’s. She’d given Zayn her eyes and her lips and more than anything, the same lilting soft voice, which she’d used to say, “Zayn, honey. You remember those silly stories we always tell you? Those fairy tales?”

Zayn just nodded, silently aching for another piece of bacon. “The ones you and Dad tell us?” he said, because he was a good kid and always answered his mother promptly and also maybe if he answered quickly he could continue eating his delicious breakfast.

“About having a special song,” she finished. “Do you remember the one about the princess who fell in love with the prince when they met on the dance floor?”

Zayn grimaced, shaking his head. “That’s Waliyha’s favorite,” he groaned. “I like the superhero one.”

His mother laughed a little, but that’s when she held his hand tightly and he stopped grimacing, because he could tell something was off.

And that’s when she started talking, started explaining what it all meant, how it happened, how Zayn’s parents had it arranged for them when they were born. Zayn’s mom swore to him then she wouldn’t do that to him, over Zayn’s breakfast of eggs and strawberries and bacon and toast, that it was archaic and would end with her and Zayn’s father, and Zayn didn’t even know what archaic meant but it sounded scary.

She said she wouldn’t even tell him what his first song was, because she wanted to let him choose for himself. That it would happen with time, that he’d find out who it was on his own.

And Zayn’s big brown eyes had been slowly going wider with every minute that passed, not because he finally realized why “Your Cheatin’ Heart” was always on every holiday, but because he remembered. The first song, his first song, he remembered it. 

After that conversation, seven year old Zayn Malik tried as hard as possible to forget.

He did.

+

It’s a spicy smell the next day. Gary obviously must have had Mexican for lunch, because it’s fresh and it’s making his tastebuds water a little.

Zayn’s back behind the dumpster, sitting on his hands this time to stop himself from reaching for another cigarette, and the pulling in his chest is building steadily, the waiting feeling. He knows he’ll need to fill it with tobacco in a few minutes. His resolve to quit isn’t going so well, apparently.

He should probably be packing groceries right now but he isn’t of course, instead just nursing a slightly sore cheek from an ill-fated encounter with his mother last night. 

Because when he’d finally rested his skateboard against the garden wall at nearly two in the morning, she’d been waiting. Waiting. Waiting with a rolled up newspaper and a shrill voice that always lets on how worried she is. Zayn winces at the memory. 

That’s when he hears a pair of feet trip up about three feet away.

It’s accompanied with a surprised yelp, and Zayn, who’s already got his eyes and body completely locked in mid-motion, glances up. With a movement his sisters always tease him about, say that he’s ruffling his feathers like some pretentious and preening bird, he shakes out what otherwise would have been a jump of fright.

He doesn’t mind the comparison, to be honest. Better than falling near flat on his face like the person in front of him. He feels a small twinge of sympathy as his eye line rises from the black pavement, and then Zayn catches sight of said person’s long legs now awkwardly scuffing a brown boot back and forth on the ground. 

When he looks up all the way, squinting in the small bit of sunlight that’s made its way into his alley, he finds he’s already being smiled down at, the afternoon sun glinting a halo into the edges of a boy’s brown hair, a pair of hands held dumbly behind his back. Zayn allows himself some time to take in and understand the whole sight in front of him.

There’s a big lilac sweater, draping over a familiar set of shoulders, a pair of navy blue jeans nearly glued onto the boy’s legs, and a silk…headscarf matting down loose curls, reminiscent of some Raphael Renaissance angel. There’s a pair of bright green eyes, spaced a little bit far apart, but still oddly like they’re supposed to look like that. He thinks for a stray moment that the boy reminds him of a frog. 

The bird and the frog. Reluctantly Zayn takes out his headphones. 

He eyes him with a steady, mildly interested gaze. Meanwhile the boy just smiles at him with that dopey grin like he’s won the lottery, and he’s even got dimples starting to pop in each cheek. They don’t say anything.

Zayn’s bewildered. People like this do not get free passes into his place.

“Hi!” is what the boy finally says, his bottom lip hidden behind his front teeth as he stops himself with another wide smile.

“Steal that from your mum?” It spills out. 

— By accident, Zayn swears. He’s usually not this standoffish at first meeting.

The boy’s clearly confused, cocking his head to the side, before suddenly lighting up and fixing the headscarf with delicate hands. “Grandmum, actually.”

Zayn doesn’t answer, just raises his eyebrows, because, incredibly, the boy is being serious. When the boy doesn’t say anything more and just smiles widely again, like they’re sharing some schoolyard secret of which Zayn has not actually been informed, Zayn’s eyes start to flicker with impatience. The frog boy seems to finally notice it.

“I was here last night,” the boy says quickly, his voice having at least fallen a few octaves back to normal. Zayn watches his boot start scuffing the pavement again. He wants to tell him to stop, but for some reason he doesn’t. “I, um, I think I saw you?” The boy unhelpfully points to the ground in front of Zayn. “About here.”

Oh. 

Zayn nods with an exaggerated and incredibly sarcastic interest before rifling through his pocket for another cigarette and a lighter because he finally knows where he’s going with this and he’ll need something to get him through it. “So?” he asks, wanting to hear it.

With another bright grin, the boy continues. “So, I, uh. Had this feeling last night…that I was meant to see the reshowing of Casablanca, actually, and it’s a really good film, as well, you ought to see it if you’ve got the, um, time, but then when we were all leaving the theatre…I went with my friend Chris, he goes to school outside of town and came down just to see the movie, right, so as I was leaving, I had the same feeling again? But this time it was to walk into this alley. And, like, don’t get me wrong, ‘cause I don’t normally trust any gut instinct that tells me to go into dark unlit places late at night, which was why I ran off in the end…but like, I was just wondering, then, since I had this feeling and then there actually was someone, um, I’m guessing you, in the alley after all…”

Zayn’d lost interest about somewhere around Casablanca, but something about the uplift in the boy’s voice near the end catches his attention.

“Funny! No.”

“Yeah! So I…what?”

“I know what you’re thinking.” Zayn’s at least impressed it’s not a pick up line like every other boy who’s ever said this to him. This boy seems to honestly believe it. “And no. Sorry,” he adds half-heartedly.

Because some people’s parents grind this into their kids like it’s a religious law for leading a good and proper life, and some people, with big open green eyes and full pink lips and unbroken innocence written all over their face, will actually believe it.

The boy is staring at him with an open mouth.

So Zayn gets up with a forced smile, trying for empathy and ending up with something more like a grimace, and flips his skateboard up and fits his headphones back onto his ears. He pats the boy on his shoulder, who’s now looking a little offended. Even on his slightly goofy face it’s attractive, which is another strange quirk to Zayn. He doesn’t really make sense.

“I just thought —.” But Zayn decides to save him the trouble. Because innocence is born with cracks, and eventually you have to fall through.

“Could I give you a bit of advice?” he asks him quietly, leaning in to whisper it in the boy’s ear since he’s learned in a household of loud voices that sometimes a whisper is so odd it makes people listen. The boy looks down at him, all wide eyes again, because of course he’ll listen, and Zayn has to stop when he starts feeling like he’s looking at a seven year old version of himself. 

“It’s not real,” he says gently. “It’s made up. Don’t listen to what they tell you, alright? It’s all crap.”

“I think it’s true,” the boy responds suddenly, surprisingly earnest.

Zayn just shrugs, moving around him to drop his skateboard back on the ground and start off because this isn’t really his problem. It’s not his duty to make people see reason. The least he can do now, he decides, is get the boy to leave him alone.

The boy follows him, of course; he can hear his slapping footsteps behind him. Zayn turns back just as he rounds the corner out of his alley, noticing a light pink flush rise in the boy’s apple cheeks when they catch eyes. 

“Don’t follow me,” he says simply.

He hears the boy’s voice again. “I’m H—.”

“Don’t wanna know!” Zayn shouts before he can finish. 

With a half-hearted wave he finally rounds the corner and leaves him behind, refusing to look back anymore. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but right now his bed seems appealing.

As he passes the open door of Gary’s he salutes to his friend Danny behind the counter and speeds past before he can even see Danny flip him off. There’s a loud noise from inside that Zayn will bet his best lighter on it being Gary himself, whacking his friend with a packet of prescription pills for improper behavior. He laughs to himself.

The closed roller coaster on the edge of the carnival boundary flicks past his vision a few minutes later, its lights off in preparation for tonight, and he watches a few clowns in droopy makeup standing in the shade, their suspenders falling off and their bulging stomachs stretching their worn costumes. One tosses his cigarette on the ground as Zayn speeds by, and he nearly runs over it in his distraction. He’s still not thinking of that frog boy’s face, not thinking of the sincerity there when he was saying he believed it. And he’s definitely not thinking that if Zayn does end up being anything to him, he’ll be a healthy dose of reality.

He’s not thinking that. Because it’s shit. It doesn’t work, and there is no such thing, and he most likely won’t see him again anyway. 

He knows.

But,

what if.

At least that’s what’s racing in circles in his brain as he lies on his bed with a heavy blanket duct taped across the window to hide the late afternoon light a few hours later, blasting music, any music, the first thing he got his hands on when he climbed through his window, trying to crowd out unwanted thoughts.

There’s still too much room, and his mind starts to wander in the pitch dark he’s created, and he’s thinking. Fuck.

And it feels important, whatever it is, so his brain won’t let go of it, his mind racing and wandering at the same time, thinking about the woman he was listening to on the radio this morning in the grocery store and what it’s like to live in London and whether that boy has ever been there. And how he’s going nowhere and how he’s got no game plan, nothing, no tricks up his sleeve, and he’s eighteen fucking years old and he’s got no clue what’s coming or how to get it. And how that boy with the weird hair and the scarf from his grandmother thinks he has it all figured out, how he believes it all, how he’ll find someone someday and fool himself into believing it really is his soulmate, and maybe ignorance really is bliss, because that person will probably believe it, too, and they’ll be fucking happy together. Because even if something isn’t real, if enough people believe it, it might as well be.

It’s the first time since Zayn can remember that he doesn’t just pass out the second his head hits the pillow. It’s the first time that his eyes are open in the dark and adjusting enough to see the silhouette of his book shelf with all the books he doesn’t read anymore.

His eyes are open and he can’t get comfortable, either, flipping this way and that, and that in itself makes him nervous because Zayn Malik is usually a Sound Sleeper. It usually requires a calvary of three sisters, four alarm clocks placed strategically around his room and one tired mother to get him to open one eye on a morning when he’s not working.

But right now, Zayn Malik can’t sleep and his eyes are wide open in the dark, and he’s thinking of that boy with the big open eyes.

When he flips over again, too hot in his too small room, he wonders what it’s like to feel this hot because someone is pressed alongside him, breathing softly on his neck.

And — that’s a new one. He’s never thought that before. 

His music switches.

There’s a knock on his door as the first notes of his parents’ song begins, one that he’d never fully appreciated the irony of until a year ago, when his younger sister peeks her head in, her small hands gripped tightly around the frame of the door.

“Zayn?” she says, watching him splayed out on his squeaky bed, his black sneakers tossed messily on the floor by his cabinets. 

He’s usually neat, is the thing, even though his room is about the size of a tin can. His shoes are all paired up at the end of his twin bed. His model airplanes are all lined up straight on his bookshelf, and his beds sheets are usually tucked and made. Zayn can tell what’s making his little sister a little hesitant, why she hasn’t stepped in the door yet. Right now, his room looks a bit like a tornado.

“I thought I heard you come in through the window,” she says happily once Zayn sits up and pats the side of his bed. She nestles herself snugly under Zayn’s arm, and Zayn lets her lean against him and mumble into his shoulder, because he’s a lot of things, but he’s not a bad older brother. “You alright?” she asks, muffled. “Mum said you came home late last night and then you left for work before I woke up this morning.”

“I’m fine, Safaa.” Then he catches what she said. “You heard me?”

“You try to be quiet, but I can always tell.” She smiles deviously. “I can hear you scraping against the shingles.” 

Zayn knows he has quite a bit of difficulty jumping from the garden ledge onto the small roof ledge outside his window, always hitting his shins against the gutter, but he’d thought he’d mastered the art of silence by now. He frowns. “Don’t try that, Safaa. It’s not safe.”

“I didn’t say I was going to!” she grumbles, punching his leg and moving away from his shoulder with a harsh shove. It actually hurts a little, and the thought makes Zayn a bit more than proud as he pulls her back in for a small hug and rubs her back.

“Just saying. I know you won’t.” He’s lying; he can tell she was definitely going to try, but it’s okay.

“Are you going back out tonight?” Safaa eyes him with the same steady gaze he has, one he copied from Yaser, one that can’t make you lie. He can’t remember when she started doing that. 

But it’s effective. Zayn puts her loose hair back in place behind her ear before answering truthfully. “Think so,” he says. “Danny and Anthony said they wanted to go to the carnival — just for a laugh!” he adds with a raised eyebrow when he sees his sister’s face. “So I might do that. Don’t tell Ma, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “Just be quiet leaving this time.”

Zayn winks. “I always am.”

+

The sun is setting when Zayn nearly dies.

Or at least that’s what his heart decides. A rustling from a bush to his right is his only warning.

“I think it’s true—.”

“FUCKING SHIT!” 

Zayn stumbles and falls spectacularly off his skateboard, flying forward about five feet, tumbling into the street as a brightly grinning head of wild curly hair appears out of nowhere with a new headscarf in place even though it’s the same fucking day. 

From the ground, Zayn shoots the boy a glance that could kill before getting up slowly with a subdued rage, checking all his parts are working and then righting his board with a bit more force than necessary. He attempts to ignore the burning pain in his right arm that’s a now clearly scraped elbow. Because Zayn Malik refuses to admit he’s a bit squeamish about injuries, but he is.

Now grumbling nonsensically, he jumps back on his board and just leaves, heart still pounding wildly. The light show of the carnival beginning to open up is just a few blocks away, and Zayn thinks he’s never been so relieved to hear the laughter and dings and screams and horrid radio music he can get lost in. 

Frog boy is still following him, though, for some reason still trying to keep up with his skateboard as the sun continues to set, casting everything in a faded light of gray and blue and orange. His brown boots are slapping familiarly against the warm pavement. Zayn ignores him entirely, doesn’t even focus on where he’s going because he’s focusing so hard on ignoring him.

“I’m sorry about your arm,” starts frog boy. “Honestly, it’s not bad at all, just a flesh wound…sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you…” Frog boy’s breathing heavily beside him. Zayn can hear that, too. He’ll lose him soon. 

“How’d you fucking find me, by the way?”

Zayn realizes only after he hears himself say it that he’s actually said it. Well that’s interesting.

“It’s hot, could we stop? I’m wearing really thick jeans, and they don’t breathe at all.” Zayn’s wheels move a little faster just because. That’s when the boy trips up over something for what must be the third time in two minutes and starts mumbling profanities under his breath, something suspiciously like fucking Yves Laurent, fucking unbalanced shoe soles. “And I didn’t, like, follow you,” he eventually replies. “If that’s what you’re wondering.”

“For some reason, I don’t believe you.” 

“Why, just because I popped out of the bushes at a ridiculously opportune time? Alright, I admit. I was actually stalking you, and figured the first place I should look was behind a bush by the carnival. You caught me.”

“What were you doing there, then?”

Frog boy stays quiet for a second, just his breathing and Zayn’s wheels and the distant carnival breaking the silence. “I don’t know,” he finally says. “I just like it there. It’s my place.”

“Your place?”

“Yeah,” frog boy laughs. “Everyone’s got one, I think. Yours is the alley, I guess, and mine is behind some bushes next to a carnival. My dad likes the leather chair in our lounge.”

Zayn doesn’t quite know how to respond to that, so he doesn’t.

“I wasn’t following you,” frog boy says again. “Swear it,” he adds breathily. “When you left I went the other way.”

Zayn glances over to see the boy is holding up his hands as innocently as possible. He wants to roll his eyes. 

They ride in silence for a few minutes, Zayn coasting at a relatively fast speed, the boy trying as hard as possible to keep up with him with a dumb little speed walk. And if he keeps sneaking glances at him, that’s just because…just because he doesn’t make sense. He’s cheery and innocent but he’s got a place, too, which. Well. That’s all.

Finally, Zayn slows down when they reach the crowd, dozens of couples and groups waiting in line to get a ticket, and he hops off his board gracefully. When he turns to frog boy, who’s admittedly out of breath, Zayn finds he actually has to look up at him. 

“It’s not true,” he reminds him.

“And if I still think it is?”

“There’s some good books on it you can read. It could change your mind. If, you know, you had an open mind.”

“Oh yeah?” the boy says sprightly. “Give me a name.”

“Socially Pre-Determined Love and Its Negative Effects on the Human Psyche, for one.” 

Zayn doesn’t know why he wants to convince this boy so much, to douse him with reality, but. You have to fall through the cracks some time.

But the boy just looks down at him with raised eyebrows, a small smile starting to play around the boy’s cupid bow pink lips like he’s won the lottery again. Zayn does roll his eyes a little this time. He doesn’t bother telling him to fuck off though because he doesn’t seem to be getting rid of him any time soon either way.

After a few minutes go by, he begins tapping his foot. A few more go by and frog boy is still standing there, a little smug, adjusting his headscarf every so often with careful hands. They step up in line.

Zayn continually fights the urge to rip it off his head entirely, because he doesn’t understand how someone so pretty and good-looking can choose a style so weird. 

A few more minutes. Danny and Anthony said they’d meet him by the milk bottle game thing in about an hour. He aches for a cigarette. His hands shake.

The boy, of course, stays in the line with him, just a little too close for comfort, his lilac sweater continually brushing against his arm every time they move up a step. Zayn tries to shy away a couple times, but of course to no real avail. Clearly the boy has no concept of personal space.

“Your headphones were playing a song,” the brown-haired boy says all of a sudden, in Zayn’s ear as the roller coaster flies by. The closeness makes Zayn shiver, and someone’s popcorn lands at their feet. They both mutually step over it.

“I stopped it, though.” That shuts the boy up for a minute. Zayn doesn’t say anything more, and the boy just jumps into another topic. 

“So, what do you like to do?”

He just shakes his head.

After about ten minutes of the boy trying to engage him in conversation and Zayn not responding at all except for a couple disbelieving expressions, suddenly:

“SHIT! Hide me!” The taller boy all but squeals it, jumping behind Zayn like a little kid, placing his hands on Zayn’s shoulders and ducking down until only his eyes are peeking above his shirt. 

The first thing Zayn notices is that he smells quite nice, actually, like cinnamon and clean washing and vanilla, and he inadvertently breathes it in for a bit before shoving him off and staring at him. The boy eyes have gone into a panic, his posture suddenly stiff and uncomfortable, exactly how it tends to become when one tries to act natural. 

“Act natural,” he hisses, confirming Zayn’s thoughts. 

Then he sees the panic in the boy’s eyes become more acutely a panicked warning, as he repeatedly shoots them somewhere to his right, jerkily nodding his head with small movements. Zayn looks just in time to see a skinny black haired boy with a girl on his arm walking jauntily toward them, clearly already drunk.

“It’s my ex, shit, I’m sorry,” the boy whispers.

“Harry!” the black-haired boy exclaims listlessly once he reaches them, letting his floral shirt fall open just a little to reveal a pale, thin torso. He lets go of the girl and puts his hands on the boy’s hips, pulling him in for a sideways hug. “Meet my girl. Glad to see you haven’t been crying about me any more,” he laughs loudly, clapping his hands together. “Who’s this?” The skinny boy turns his unfocused eyes on Zayn.

Zayn wasn’t paying attention because Zayn was kind of thinking something along the lines of Harry. Harry. The headscarf frog boy has a name and it’s Harry, and it suits him, and also he’s got nice hips that Zayn kind of wants to hold. And he smells nice.

He hears frog boy Harry talking, trying to be heard over the zings and loud noise of the carnival scene behind them, and he comes back to earth to hear: “This is, um. This is…” 

Without thinking, Zayn grabs hold of Harrys wrist gently and squeezes a little. “Boyfriend,” he finishes a little roughly, awkwardly slotting the fingers of his right hand into Harry’s left. He holds it out, almost for inspection, and he feels Harry squeeze back a little in thanks. Harry’s hand has got a nice warmth to it, Zayn finds himself thinking, surprisingly solid and big and sure, and Zayn’s thin fingers can’t help but draw some of the warmth for themselves. 

“Your boyfriend! Ha, out of your league, Harry, I’ve got to say.” The black haired boy eyes him up and down lazily, with mild interest. Zayn just rolls his eyes and goes up on his toes, kissing Harry flat on his half open lips, and he murmurs into Harry’s surprised mouth to just go with it. When he pulls away the skinny boy seems a little put out, but not too bothered, and Zayn sees Harry blink a few times. 

“Listen, yeah!” Harry’s ex repeats, and Zayn realizes he’s now moved on to something else, that Zayn wasn’t paying attention again, thinking about how those lips weren’t as chapped as they looked. Harry’s ex is talking quite vehemently about the ferris wheel, it seems, and how they all ought to do it together because that would be “good fun, yeah?” and to Zayn he looks a bit like he smells like day old smoke and beer, and for some reason he’s really glad he’s not with Harry anymore.

But this Harry figure who he’s still holding hands with seems to be a bit of a masochist because Zayn hears him agreeing, saying “just let us get our tickets and we’ll meet you there,” and Zayn wonders if Danny and Anthony are still going to be waiting for him when he gets back because he’s got a feeling he’s just roped himself into something.

They get their tickets and don’t say anything, Harry’s cheeks blushing every time Zayn even so much as glances at him, and they follow the skinny boy’s swaying steps in front of him toward the ferris wheel, too close for either of them to actually discuss what’s happening right now.

Zayn looks at Harry’s profile again. He’s still blushing, looking down at the ground.

“It’s fine,” Zayn finally says reluctantly, nudging the boy’s side. “Stop worrying.”

“I didn’t mean to, I mean I know I was being, but I didn’t want for you to have to, you know.”

“I don’t mind.”

At this, Harry’s lips curve back up, just a little. Zayn thinks he kind of likes being the one to make that happen. And he doesn't know when he started thinking that, when someone following you around town became endearing, but still. Maybe he really is as desperate as Waliyha says.

They get on the ride together and end up getting a compartment to themselves, Harry’s ex and his current girlfriend shoving themselves in with a quite annoyed family before them. Zayn finds himself a little distracted with the way neither of them have thought to let go of each other’s hands yet as they slowly climb higher, and it’s childish, but fuck, fine, it’s a little cute. And when they reach the top of the ferris wheel, Harry sitting there, his knee hitting Zayn’s every time they lurch to a halt, that’s when Zayn’s heart starts to really pound.

But not because he’s been thinking of how nice Harry smells or how pretty he actually is when you get a proper look, or how they’re sitting incredibly close and have been for a few minutes. Not because he’s just noticed Harry’s been absentmindedly tracing circles into the back of his hand as he looks away from him, out at the darkening sky, talking nonsense that Zayn wasn’t really listening to. 

Zayn Malik has just remembered he is deathly afraid of heights. 

And he’s just made the fatal mistake of looking down when they lurched to a stop a second ago. Harry can sense his sudden stiffness. “Are you alright?” he asks, pausing in the middle of some story about how his sister caught her hair in the blender making his birthday cake when he was nine.

Zayn just swallows and looks ahead, nodding like it’s nothing. He wishes he had a cigarette. “Yeah,” he says. “Just. Heights.”

“You don’t like heights?” Harry asks, incredulous. “Why are you on a ferris wheel then?”

“I fucking did this for you, if you don’t remember!”

“Right, sorry, um, okay.” Harry’s embarrassed again, and it’s dark but Zayn can still tell his cheeks are bright red, and Zayn wants to kiss them away just so he’ll stop becoming a fucking tomato every forty seconds. “Don’t worry,” he says dumbly, “it’s not like this thing is gonna fall apart or anything. You’re probably fine, I mean…I know it’s not like they have health and safety standards or anything, but like…what are the chances of it falling apart and you falling to your—,” Harry stops himself, and Zayn can only guess it’s because he’s realized he’s nearly dug himself to China. “Right, um, never mind. Tell me about yourself? Distract yourself. How’s your arm? What’s your name?”

Zayn swallows, tapping his foot too quickly, jittery, anxious for something to calm his nerves. “Zayn,” he croaks.

He can feel Harry looking at him. “Zayn,” the green-eyed boy repeats. “Zayn, I like that. Mysterious Zayn who doesn’t believe in the song thing.”

He nods.

“So what do want to be when you grow up?”

It’s a weird question, Zayn thinks, because technically he is grown up. “I dunno,” he answers. “An art teacher. Maybe English.”

“I want to be a psychotherapist,” Harry offers. “I like helping people.”

The ferris wheel lurches forward a little, but only enough to make it possibly six thousand times worse because now he can’t see anything but the dark and their small seaside town stretching out beyond them. It feels like he’s standing on the edge of a never-ending precipice that leads to certain death, and they can hear Harry’s ex, who Zayn has learned goes by Matty, whooping and shouting in the compartment below them, and this is definitely not how he wants to die.

Harry’s knee is still nudging Zayn’s, though he thinks it’s more intentional now. “Do you still need a distraction?” Harry asks, trying to search his face even though all he can probably see is the profile of Zayn’s nose outlined by the carnival lights below.

Fuck, they’re so high up. This is embarrassing. Harry’s hand makes its way to Zayn’s knee and squeezes gently, trying to comfort him.

Zayn can’t seem to bring himself to answer, his heart just insistently pounding double time in his throat when he finally turns to look at the boy, finding himself closer than he expected, and for a moment he’s momentarily distracted by the pretty roundness of his cheeks and sharp line of his jaw, the same one he’d thought was so intimidating last night. His chest pulls a little. His entire existence is an anomaly to Zayn, the hard and soft, and this distraction seems to be working, because now he’s got his hooded eyes fixed on the shape of the boy’s lips, full and soft looking, and his hand’s made its way to the boy’s thigh, and for a moment he forgets this is the same boy with the dumb headscarf from his grandmother who followed him around this afternoon.

“Okay,” Harry says, and that’s when Zayn realizes he said “yes” out loud.

He feels a thrumming in his chest, a shot of adrenaline in his wrists shooting all the way to his stomach, making him lightheaded as Harry dips down a little closer to him.

And that’s when they lurch forward again and it’s all Zayn can do not to fucking scream, because he feels like he’s going to fly out and Harry throws a hand out against his chest even though he didn’t really need to, and now they’re moving faster toward the ground and leaving that almost moment way up in the sky behind them.

He feels Harry’s knee leave his.

+

Oh, fuck.

When they conveniently leave Matty and his girl — who never actually said a coherent word to them, but she seemed quite nice — by the cotton candy stand a few minutes after they get off the ride, that’s when Zayn suddenly remembers Danny and Anthony. Fuck, right. Commitments outside of the immediate presence of Harry and his low voice and apple cheeks and broad shoulders and vanilla scent. 

And, well, they definitely are gone by now, or just about leaving, because they’re just shits who obviously don’t value a long-seated and long-standing friendship, even if Zayn did leave them for an hour waiting. He really ought to go find them, explain, but then he looks at Harry. Whose lips are shiny with sugar and even darker pink from the dye, full and big as he mouths openly at the cotton candy, and Zayn starts to feel a twitch of interest that doesn’t necessarily have to do with their handholding.

And then he’s remembering what it felt like to have those lips so close to him, on him, how overpowered he felt. How he’d like to have it somewhere else, kissing him lightly, then taking him, all of him, overpowering him still…

For a moment, he’s decided. He should stay. Maybe he doesn’t have to be that dose of reality, at least not tonight. And maybe he can hold those hips the way he wanted to and kiss that jaw he’s been admiring, and have those pillow soft lips finally press gentle kisses along him. He’s restless, but in a different way now.

And that’s what he’s thinking when Harry glances at him, licking his lips and winking like he fucking knows what’s on his mind. That’s what shakes Zayn out of his reverie. Fuck, he’s insane. He needs to take a step back.

So he takes a literal one. It’s embarrassing. He trips over a cup.

He sees Harry almost ask it, too, clearly getting the picture, pulling the cotton candy from his mouth and starting to say, “You know, if you—,” but that’s when Zayn abruptly cuts him off and says he has to leave. Like, right now. He said he’d be home early. Or something. Find his, erm, friends. Right.

With a slightly confused look, Harry just nods and says it’s fine, going back to finishing off his cotton candy before shrugging his shoulders. With a bright voice he reminds him that Zayn’s skateboard is back behind the bush by the ferris wheel like Zayn’d asked him to remind him, and then there’s an awkward moment where Zayn’s wave gets turned into a hug, a soft kiss pressed to his temple, and he leaves with a half-smile and falls asleep thinking of the way it felt to be pressed alongside him back up on the ferris wheel. 

He doesn’t even bother to be quiet that night when he finally touches himself under the sheets, too hot in his too small room.

+

The next day Zayn finds himself expecting him. That huge head of loose curls peeking around the corner, the possible new headscarf that he’ll cringe at, watching him fumble over his feet. The thought of it makes him a little excited. He doesn’t even notice that his hands aren’t shaking as much today.

And he doesn’t know anything other than the fact that he’s cleared away a bit of the dirt in his alley with his foot, more of a courtesy than he’s ever extended to Danny or Anthony whenever they’ve come to clear their heads with him and dirty their lungs.

So he waits. He walked here, so there’s no skateboard, and he doesn’t have his music, because it doesn’t fill the empty spaces like Harry does, so he waits in silence. There might be a glance at the entrance of the alley every few minutes, a squint at the gray sky. He doesn’t even notice the smell of souring ice cream in the dumpster.

So he waits.

And after a few hours of waiting, which go by inexorably slowly but it’s okay, because Harry’s coming, because tapping his foot and ignoring the rain drops that are coming down spottily is fine because Harry’s coming, he decides to grab for one of his old comic books. The one with the reptile man hero on the front, where the lamination has dulled a bit from his fingers. 

There’s a girl shouting from a rooftop in the distance. Zayn always liked to imagine himself as the reptile man, just a little misunderstood but ultimately going to save the city from the evil robot turkey, but right now he thinks he might have gotten it wrong. Because right now, he feels like the girl shouting from the rooftops. But Harry’s coming. It’s okay.

He’s not waiting in the modern Rapunzel tower at the will of the hero, shouting, not moving, waiting, hopeless. Because Harry’s coming.

When the raindrops turn into actual rain, and his hands start to shake a little more, and it’s been fucking six hours and the sun isn’t setting yet because it’s summer but it’s late enough that it feels like it should be, that’s when he gets a bit upset.

Because of course not. Of course not.

Harry’s nice, and smells nice, and gets under your skin and makes you a little less cynical, so of course not. That kind of person’s not for Zayn. Zayn doesn’t get those kinds of people. He gets the kind of people who don’t believe it either, who find him here and assume they can buy his love with a pack of cigarettes, and they usually can.

Harry isn’t for him, so of course he’s not coming. Fuck. He probably went to his place last night after the carnival and realized he doesn’t want to fuck with Zayn’s inability to be anything but a sad sod who doesn’t believe in the song thing, and now he’s off looking for his soulmate again, somewhere else, following other gut feelings, now that he knows Zayn’s not it. Because that’s the kind of person he is, who goes straight for the sweetest thing, all bright eyes and eager heart, and Zayn’s not it for him.

Because of course not.

Yeah, he might also have a place. But Zayn’s not that bothered. He wouldn’t want someone who made him fucking think in terms of fairy tales anyway.

Fuck him.

He pats down the pockets of his denim jacket for a cigarette, coming up empty except for his lighter, and kicks the wall behind him before going home.

+

The next day is the same. He doesn't skip work this time to wait in the alley, just goes home after his shift, tired and bored.

+

“Hey, Ma.”

“Zayn?” Trisha says, stationed at the stove, stirring with a focus and not looking up. “You’re home early. Here,” she says as he steps in the door. “Have some of this sauce I made, try it. Is it too salty?” Trisha holds up a wooden spoon to Zayn’s mouth, not even giving him time to heel off his shoes. “It’s a new recipe from Kate down the street. What do you think?”

Zayn, half forced, slurps at the spoon. “S’good, Ma.”

The flush on Trisha’s cheeks is rosy and bright, and Zayn’s mad when it reminds him of Harry’s. “Really? I think I put too much garlic powder, maybe. I’ll balance it with more basil, I think. Are you sure it’s not too salty?”

“It’s really good, Ma.” Zayn kisses her temple and drops his shoes by the door. “When’s dinner?”

“We’re actually all going out tonight,” she admits, wiping her hands on her apron. “We’ve got reservations and everything, at Lucia’s. We didn’t think you’d be home until later, so I was making this for you.” She watches Zayn, watches him nod and blink. “If you want, we can cancel the reservations. I can’t order another seat at the restaurant, you know how crowded they are, but we can all go together another night, how’s that?”

“It’s fine, Ma. I don’t mind being home alone tonight, it’s fine. You and everyone ought to go. You deserve a break for once.”

His mother watches him with big brown eyes, soft, but with the same hard calculating look as Zayn’s got. She’s got four kids, Zayn supposes, so it’s not a surprise she can catch it. “You’re more down than usual.” she comments, putting down the spoon and lowering the heat to a simmer. “Is there something you want to talk about?”

He just shakes his head, but she pulls him into a hug.

“Don’t worry, Zayn,” she tells him, knowing in the way that mothers sometimes do, no matter how many times they’re oblivious to other very important things. “Don’t worry about that, okay? I love you so much, you are so, so loved, and you're not alone. Don't go thinking that. There’s someone out there who will be very lucky to have you one day. You have to know that.”

And he doesn’t know what it is about mothers, but sometimes they’re really fucking nice to have around. He wraps his arms around her and hugs back, hooking his chin over her shoulder and whispering thanks. She holds his face her hands, staring, and maybe home isn’t as fucking bad as he plays it.

When he walks upstairs after his family leaves, past his parents’ bedroom with only one side of the bed slept on anymore, though, it kind of is.

Because if soulmates can cheat and leave, it’s not fucking true. People aren’t meant to be. There’s no jigsaw puzzle maker in the sky fitting people together and dropping them down on the earth and watching them try to find each other. People just make these things up to help cope. And if enough people make it up, people start believing it. And if enough people believe it, it all becomes a fucking mess. Because if you drop this into a fictional, invisible decision maker’s lap, if you leave it all up to chance and predetermined fucking fate, no one ends up free. They discipline themselves for nothing.

It can’t be fucking true.

What sounds like a scrape of shingles is what catches his attention. His first thought is Safaa, and he’s running to his bedroom about to shout about safety and “you fucking promised, you’ll get yourself killed,” when he reaches his bedroom and sees a shape on his roof ledge that is definitely not a thirteen year old girl. This shape has a head of curly hair and a gray shirt on and dark wash jeans, squatting on his ledge and looking through his window with a shit-eating grin that is definitely much more likely to get himself killed. 

Zayn briefly wonders if he has a baseball bat handy.

There’s a muffled voice through the windowpane. “Let me in!” Harry says, waving at him like this is normal.

He does, with a dull scowl. Harry climbs in, the fading light hitting his back and haloing his curls. Without so much as any pretense, he settles himself on Zayn’s bed and holds something out. “It’s a good book.”

“What?”

“They didn’t have it anywhere, so I went all the way to my sister’s place and took her library card and found it there. It was nice. I drove through the country.”

“What?”

“And I got back late yesterday so I went back to your place today to show you but you weren’t there so I went to my place in case maybe you went there but you weren’t there either, so I sat down and read it. It’s not that long. It’s good.”

“What?”

“Will you stop saying what?” Harry laughs, fitting himself into Zayn’s pillows and kicking off his boots. “I got the book, I read it, and now I have an open mind and shit. So, let’s talk about the important thing.” He smiles a little. “You, last night —.”

“How do you know where I live?”

“I...know people.” It looks like Harry was hoping he wouldn’t ask that.

“You did follow me.”

“Well, I thought you were my one, of course I would,” Harry finally mumbles, his cheeks heating up. “Sorry, I know you don’t think we are. Sorry, you know what, this was a bad idea, um. I’ll go, I’ll just…” He gets up and goes to pick up his shoes, but Zayn shakes his head.

“Whatever. It’s fine. Stay.”

“Stay?”

“Don’t make me,” Zayn says with a look, “change my mind, Harry. Yeah, stay.” He watches Harry’s eyes brighten again, clear and green and big, and his mouth widens into an open smile that shows all his teeth. 

“Thanks,” is all he says. Zayn sits down on the bed next to him, and he’s never on his bed or in his room without blasting music, but right now he feels like he doesn’t have to. Together, they lie back and stare at the ceiling, their arms touching. 

Zayn pretends he doesn’t feel the electricity zinging back and forth between their skin.

“My parents always believed it,” Harry starts, and Zayn stares at his close profile, the peach fuzz that’s not even stubble yet. “I grew up on it. They never told me my first song, you know, they kept it sacred. My sister’s already engaged.”

“Congratulations,” Zayn says quietly, because Harry doesn’t sound all that excited.

“And to be honest, I did think something drew me to you. Probably because I was thinking, you know, she’s got it figured out already and she’s just twenty-three, so I ought to get on it. I get that you’re not it, that you don’t want to be it. Oh, well,” Harry laughs. “They always say it’s more complicated than you’d think.”

“They do.”

“I still want to be around you. It’s not like you not wanting to be my one will make me stop wanting to be around you. I hope that’s okay.”

Zayn wants to kiss him, show him he’s getting it a little wrong. “It’s okay,” he breathes instead. And, fuck, of course the soulmate-less person would fall for the one person who’s on a search for the real thing. Zayn feels a pull in chest, and he thinks it’s from knowing he’s looking at someone he’ll never have.

So when Harry kisses him when Zayn turns to look again, heavy on his mouth but light and soft and eager and sudden, rolling on top of him when Zayn responds, Zayn tries to jump back. He can tell Harry’s a little nervous from the way he pulls back too, their legs still intertwined and their crotches still dangerously close, just four layers of fabric between them. Zayn’s mind jumps to a dirty place. 

Harry pauses, his hesitancy somewhat countered by him thickening a little against Zayn, and pulls their lips together again, a little more slowly, and Zayn, this time, lets it happen. His hands find their way to Harry’s small love handles, pulling him down and closer, and the quiet groan breathed into Zayn’s mouth almost kills him. They move back so Zayn’s resting against his pillows and they make out slowly, and Zayn doesn’t even notice but his hands aren’t shaking anymore as they twine themselves into the boy’s hair, pulling his mouth even closer, eventually flipping them over so he’s on top, and suddenly it feels right.

His chest is pulling so hard he thinks it might break away from him entirely. Adrenaline shoots in his wrists and fills his stomach with pleasant butterflies, Harry pliant and needy beneath him as he licks the boy’s lower lip and moves against him, creating a delicious friction that Zayn had only thought about.

When he starts to move down though, pressing small kisses into the boy’s neck and chest and stomach and pelvic bones, lifting up his shirt a little to get at them, Harry starts breathing a little too fast. Zayn looks up. There’s a heavy pink flush on the boy’s cheeks, already looking like he’s been fucked to Mars and back. Zayn nearly comes from that alone.

“Never done this before?” he breathes, rubbing his hands along Harry’s thighs soothingly, watching them spread a little of their own accord.

“No,” Harry whispers back, before smiling a little like a kitten.

“If this is too soon,” Zayn assures him, “we don’t have to.” Even though he really, really, wants to. His mouth is nearly watering, but he won’t do anything Harry doesn’t want. He’s surprised, then, when Harry laughs a little.

“We’re supposed to be locked to our soul mates from the minute we’re born, and you’re wondering if this is too soon?” 

Zayn smiles hugely and traces his fingertips over the sides of Harry’s tummy, pushing up the fabric of his shirt and kissing the top of each hip bone. “You sure?” he asks one more time.

Harry just looks at him, all doe eyes and tensing stomach muscles from where Zayn’s lips murmur the words on them, his shirt messed up and his hair slightly mussed, before nodding almost too eagerly.

Zayn thinks he’s in love. “I’ll go slow,” he promises.

With precise nimble fingers he unbuttons Harry’s jeans, pulls them off with a Herculean effort, and they’re both giggling, Harry apologizing but not really meaning it, saying something about how there’s a limited supply at charity shops, until he suddenly stops talking and clenches his hands into fists when Zayn starts palming him through his boxers. Harry’s warm beneath him, hard and surprisingly big, and Zayn’s own dick aches a little at the thought of relief. He looks up and waits for Harry to nod for him to continue. When he does, when he pats Harry’s side to let him to know lift up and finally pulls down his briefs and watches as Harry’s dick springs up, flushed deep pink and bigger than Zayn expected, all he listens to are Harry’s soft mewling, encouraging sounds as he gets a hand on him. Harry watches him like he’s in a trance, his eyes soft and hazy, watching Zayn watch him, pull him a few times with steady, slow strokes. Zayn’s mouth is so close to his dick he knows Harry can feel the warm air ghosting over it. Zayn’s nearly overwhelmed himself.

Before pressing a kiss to the tip like he wants to, he figures he better give him a little warning. “I’m gonna,” he breathes, watching Harry fidget in restless anticipation, “blow you, now, is that okay?” 

Harry just nods furiously, his hips already rutting forward a little eagerly, and the tip just accidentally brushes Zayn’s mouth. There’s a loud groan from above him, and a hurried “sorry,” and another small mewl when Zayn breathes on him again, and Zayn thinks he kind of likes being the one to make that happen. Harry tries to control himself, tensing his stomach and keeping his hands beneath his head, just watching Zayn with big dilated pupils, and Zayn doesn’t have any of it, instead just puts a steady small hand on his base and sinks down, slowly, his lips stretching because Harry’s so big. He begins humming to himself, moving up and down, liking the heavy weight on his tongue, and Harry does everything he can to not rut into Zayn’s mouth. 

There’s only a stuttered warning of “Zayn,” before Harry’s hips jump a little off the bed and Zayn pulls back so he’s just sucking on tip, licking under the slit and encouraging it with another hum, and that’s when Harry gasps and comes, spurting and filling his mouth and near pulsing beneath Zayn’s hand, and he's pumping him through it until he’s sensitive. When he looks up and swallows, Harry looks so spent it’s ridiculous, his bare legs loose and open on Zayn’s bed, his eyes sleepy and drooping, staring at Zayn with an open, loving, lazy smile, and Zayn can’t help but crawl up slowly and sit on his chest, slotting their lips together, and his heart is so full of Harry, Harry with his dumb cupid bow lips and innocent dumb green eyes and pretty little love handle hips, and his chest is pulling so hard he thinks he might burst. 

He’s just about to get himself off, still lazily licking inside Harry’s mouth, when Harry stops him and laughs, before kissing his jaw. “Let me.” Zayn looks at him, but Harry just winks, soft and drunk off his orgasm. “Please.”

And Zayn doesn’t think he’s ever felt anything like Harry’s lips on him as he grabs at the curly locks at the base of his neck when he goes down, his pillowy lips dragging up the underside of his cock, making him shudder and come more quickly than he probably has since he was fourteen, but it may have been because Harry had murmured that he liked the sound of his voice when he was encouraging him to go a little faster. 

When Harry lays back down beside him, in a pair of Zayn’s spare boxers, resting his head on Zayn’s chest, his swollen and bruised lips pressing kisses through the fabric of Zayn’s shirt, that’s when Zayn’s noticed his hands have stopped shaking. The pulling in his chest has spread through the rest of his body and is filling him with a quiet buzzing feeling, and as Harry’s blinking asleep next to him, a big and sure hand resting heavily on his stomach, Zayn feels like he’s soaring, falling. Rising and falling at the same time, and he doesn’t know what to do.

Just before he falls asleep, he lets himself fall.

+

“Shit!”

Zayn wakes up with bleary eyes to the sight of a wide-eyed Harry jumping around his room with his pants around his ankles. He mumbles something along the lines of wha’s ‘happenin.

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispers, shoving his jeans up around his thighs and buttoning them frantically and searching for his boots. “I…I woke up, and, fuck, I didn’t mean to sleep over, it’s still early but someone’s up, I should go.” Harry finds his shoes beneath Zayn’s little desk and shoves his feet into them quickly. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“Trouble?” Zayn repeats, finally regaining consciousness. “Harry, my mother’s been waiting for the day I brought someone home since I was about twelve. It’s fine. Stop worrying. Unless, I mean, you don’t want to stay. That’s fine.”

“Fuck, Zayn, of course I do, I love you, I mean, shit, that’s not what I meant, but I don’t want you to explain, um, this…”

There must be some overseeing power of the universe that can see shitty people, because usually some freak accident occurs if anyone tries to go against or rig the system. Danny had his house broken into and all of his music equipment stolen last week, and, granted, he lives in the shitty townhouses on the wrong side of town, down the street from Zayn, but Danny’s parents had been trying to set him up with a girl who lives uptown by the pier. They'd been trying to rig it, invite her over, keep Danny from meeting her until the time was right. Even if Zayn doesn’t believe in the dumb fucking ass legend, he sure as fuck isn’t going to fuck with that kind of karma.

He fell last night. And he doesn’t know if that’s what it’s supposed to feel like, or if it’s like your first orgasm and you keep thinking that you’re feeling the orgasm until it hits and that's when you finally realize what it feels like, but he fell last night. He let himself fall.

For some reason, letting Harry leave right now feels like really bad karma.

And that’s why Zayn, who usually needs a calvary of three sisters, four alarm clocks placed strategically around his room and one tired mother to get him up in the morning, gets out of his bed because Harry looks worried and he needs to fix that.

“Don’t worry,” he says, kissing his neck because morning breath really is a bitch sometimes. “Meet my family.”

Harry looks at him with his doe eyes, big and bright, and you know what, maybe innocence isn’t always born with cracks. Maybe Harry’s a little different. Maybe it’s not innocence he has after all. Maybe it’s something else. “I don’t care about the song thing,” is what Harry says, quietly. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

“No?”

“Not anymore,” Harry finishes. “If I can be with you, and I fucking know that sounds cheesy but whatever, if I can be with you, it doesn’t matter.”

“I’ve only known you for three days,” Zayn says, laughing. Even though he’s fucking feeling the same thing. “Isn’t that a little soon?”

Harry just laughs, a bright, loud sound that throws his head back. “We’re supposed to be locked to our soul mates from the minute we’re born, and you’re wondering if this is too soon?”

“Come downstairs.” Zayn can’t help but smile, rolling his eyes and fitting a hand on Harry’s hip as he starts to lead him out the door. He can smell eggs, frying bacon and french toast, hear the muted sound of cartoons on the television downstairs, and right next to him is Harry, a little nervous, smelling just faintly of sex but mostly like vanilla and cinnamon and fresh laundry, and when Harry grips his hand in his, he thinks he’s home.

Because here, if your hands stop shaking when they’re holding some one and your eyes stay open even when you’re in the dark, it’s one of the signs. It means you might have your one. It’s a messy business, and some people don’t believe it, and it might not be true, in the long run, but lonely people sometimes need time to realize that the pulling in their chest is what it is.

Harry squeezes his hand a little, and it alters his breath a little, and for once it’s not because he’s got a cigarette between his teeth, trying to fill something, a hole that Harry kind of fills completely, roughly but whole. Together they walk downstairs.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblrs are [donechapel](http://www.donechapel.tumblr.com) and [getyouwhateverthepayne](http://www.getyouwhateverthepayne.tumblr.com) talk to me on there or say hello pLS I LOVE YOU
> 
> also i know there must be mistakes + it aint perfect so let me know if there's something wrong :-)
> 
> hope you liked it! please give me any feedback ya have!!


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